ForumsProgramming ForumIntroduction, what I'm doing, and the help I'm requesting...

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SonOfChaos
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SonOfChaos
2 posts
Nomad

Hi everybody!

SoC here. I've broken down and decided that I should finally make a flash game. (or try at least...man the amount of work I'm going to have to put into this is SCARY)

I've got some C coding behind me...but I haven't seriously coded in over a decade now. After looking at a little of the actionscript, it does not seem impossible...but clearly is going to require a lot of work on my part. I WANT to create my own flash game and not recycle too much of everyone elses code so I'm certain I will have a billion questions.

Now, I've decided a point-n-click adventure would be a good starting point as their should be no real physics involved...thus no heavy math to start. I'm using Flash 8, basically yesterday is the first time I tried to use it...my first questions will be very rudimentary, I will come to the community for key guidance but I'll try and do the heavy lifting on my own.

My questions...all of these should be viewed from a point and click adventure coding perspective.
1. Timelines : From an animation standpoint they make sense, from a coding perspective not so much. Good programming technique 101 obviously has me convinced to put the bulk of the code on the timeline.

In a point and click adventure what would be the best way to organize the timelines. Currently, I am creating a keyframe, creating buttons with goto commands to take me to other keyframes, this is how I am implementing navigation. The only problem is, as the game gets larger, that will be one SERIOUSLY huge main timeline when doing this type of game, how/when should other timelines be used? I can see this whole game done on the main timeline, at least the bulk of the coding, but how should frames be organized to stay sane...

Super Rudimentary: Scenes...how do you use them? What are they used for?

Big question: Overlay and inventory? Inventories and a transparent overlay, my first real challenge...

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PixelSmash
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PixelSmash
566 posts
Nomad

I assume you're coding and working directly on the stage, and not much inside movieclips and seperate AS files?

In any case, to answer your first question about timelines... that's all up to you. Whatever floats your boat!
Now I can understand that wouldn't be too helpful for you, so I'll just share what I think. If I were to make something like this, I'd probably make a few screens per timeline, so I'd roughly have one room/level/something, not too little but not too much either, so you won't get confused. Then, I'd create a new scene, rename it so it makes more sense than Scene 2, and create another room on that timeline... and so forth. (Don't forget to rename your original scene too!)
What a scene is... well, it's basically a seperate timeline, which you can go to with the gotoAndPlay / stop commands. (Read those up in the help, some pretty decent explanation should be there.) This way, especially for longer animations, you can manage your file so that you don't have to scroll through 3000 frames before you're where you want to be! Quite useful.
But what it comes down to is 'keep it clear'. Make sure you know what you're doing, and that you'll still know it if the game gets bigger or if you pause working for a while.

The overlay / inventory... I'd suggest creating a nested movieclip having your complete inventory in it. Then, encapsulate that in another movieclip, and alpha tween the inventory mc. Add a simple 'stop()' to the beginning of the total movieclip, and with a play command you can 'open' it - and close it again!

I hope this is somewhat clear, since I can't find better words right now... but if something is unclear, just ask

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